Tuesday, 20 July 2010

More counting

Wow, it’s been over two weeks since I last blogged. To be honest, I haven’t wanted to blog , because I haven’t had that much to say, and what I have to say, was better delivered via twitter or facebook.

I could have blerked on about how crap my training has been, because my body just won’t behave, or how frustrated I am with having to read food labels, research diets, keep an eye on what goes into my mouth and what comes out the other end, including performance on the bike. But I think that all gets a bit tedious and mundane, for me at least, if not for you.

One thing I do want to talk about though, is keeping a food diary as a way to measure how much carbohydrate and protein is actually going into your body. I have kept diaries before, to monitor this, and more recently, to monitor the kinds of food I actually do eat over a few weeks. After yet another crap training session on Saturday (ok, I had a bad week last week), where I could barely hang on to the warm up (somewhat humiliating) I realised that perhaps that niggling half-thought I’d been having about protein levels may have some truth to it.

So I drafted myself up a diary in excel, to count carbs, protein, calories etc, with a spreadsheet of foods I commonly eat, with those details noted against a measured amount of whatever food it is. Even after a couple of days of monitoring, I realise that I am way behind in total amounts of carb and protein I need to train well, recover well and do it again. So here is something I can control, being the control-freak that I am, and take back at least a part of my response to training; from you gotta be kidding me, to get out of my way, you’re blocking my view ahead.

But you are right: label reading is not the whole story. As you say, you need to know what ingredients to keep an eye out for, for your own situation. The number of products I have taken off shelf, thinking "O yaay! This is a goer!" Only to read the label and see one ingredient that ruins the moment of joy lol. I wrote a little about labelling on the EatmyDragster blog.

Glad my email cheered you up! I can imagine how you are feeling, staring the weekend in the face. I've been feeling similar just for a group training session. A weekend tour would be 10x worse. But you'll do it! :-D

About Me

There is no use trying, said Alice; one can't believe impossible things. I dare say you haven't had much practice, said the Queen. When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.
Lewis Carroll